Two Queer YA

I know, it's shocking: me, reading queer YA? Well, if you've pulled your jaw off the floor, here is what I thought of these two books:

All That's Left in the World (by Erik J. Brown) 

Two boys find each other after the apocalypse and try to survive while dealing with feelings for each other. (Complicated by the fact that one of the boys is straight. Or is he...) It's somehow a fun apocalyptic book? Extremely grim (since everyone they know and love is dead from the "superflu") but with some hope in it too.

The One True Me and You (by Remi K. England)

I was sold at the very beginning when one of the characters was introduced by writing Johnlock fanfiction. Clearly this is written by someone in the fandom world who is just leaning all the way into it. (Apparently the first draft had references to Tumblr too, which has been changed in the final version to Posted, probably because the Tumblr reference dates the book. Honestly the Johnlock ones do too. I guess this is supposed to be a new show based on Sherlock Holmes that also has a Johnlock ship? Hmmm.) 

Okay wait where was I? Anyway the characters in this are terrific: Teagan is a pageant queen who is also secretly a fan of this show and secretly a lesbian; Kay is a nonbinary nerd who wants to explore their identity and pronouns during the conference. The same hotel has both a pageant and a conference; Teagan and Kay meet cute and spend an intense weekend together.

The ending of this book was a bit of a letdown as many, many plotlines are just dropped or glossed over at the end.  There's no resolution with the main villains.  There's no discussion of whether Kay's nonbinary status complicates Teagan's lesbian identity. It just kind of... peters out at the end. But I love the two main characters and the joy of fandom that permeates this book.  It's probably the lesser of these two books, but it's the one I have more to say about, so I guess that's something.